Gang goes on sick rampage, sodomizing teen with plunger and forcing another to burn lover with cigs

BY Rocco Parascandola, Joe Jackson and Corky Siemaszko
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Saturday, October 9th 2010, 4:00 AM


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The so-called Latin King Goonies used Osborne Place building as headquarters for their sick attacks.

Fueled by hate for homosexuals, a sick crew of Bronx gang members went on a wave of sadistic violence that included forcing a teen to burn his gay lover with cigarettes, cops said Friday.

The cowardly creeps then made the 17-year-old watch as they sodomized the tortured man with a miniature baseball bat.

The gang members, who call themselves the Latin King Goonies, also sodomized another 17-year-old with a toilet plunger before capping their reign of terror by beating up and robbing a fourth person. The last man attacked was the older brother of one of the earlier victims.

"These suspects employed terrible, wolf-pack odds of nine against one, odds which revealed them as predators whose crimes were as cowardly as they were despicable," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Seven hoods, ages from 16 to 23, have been rounded up. Cops are looking for at least two other members of the cruel crew, Kelly said.

Their leader was identified by sources as 23-year-old Ildefonso (Cheto) Mendez. They're charged with unlawful imprisonment, abduction, assault, robbery, menacing and sodomy - all as hate crimes.

The suspects, including one who was taken out of the 41st Precinct stationhouse on a stretcher and transported to a hospital because of a seizure, were waiting to be arraigned last night.

They were still passing blame to one another last night, said a law enforcement source.

"Nobody wants to take responsibility for the plunger," the source said. "One guy is lying through his teeth."

"This was not part of an initiation," Kelly said. "This was a reaction to the fact that they had engaged in homosexual activity."

The arrests came just days after two young men were busted for attacking a gay man in the bathroom of the Stonewall Inn, the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

And with gay-bashing on the uptick - 44 attacks as of Monday compared with 41 at the same time last year - city leaders reacted with outrage.

"These attacks are appalling and are even more despicable because the victims were clearly targeted in acts of hate simply because they are gay," City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.

"Bronxites will not tolerate any form of bigotry in our borough," Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said.

The torture took place in an abandoned Morris Heights building across the street from a public school. Area residents called it the Goonie House. Gang members threw parties and had sex there. As many as a dozen pit bulls guarded the place.

"They'd have meets there every Friday," said a 33-year-old woman too terrified to reveal her name. "They're running crazy from there - hurting people, taking stuff. Latin Kings don't let gay people in their nation."

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